Shatner and Nimoy starred opposite each other in Star Trek: The Original Series, which ran for three seasons between 1966 and 1969, as Captain James T. Kirk and Spock, respectively. Stories of their egos clashing on set have circulated for years, but the duo boasted a close friendship that spanned almost five decades. 

However, Shatner, 93, revealed in his 2016 book, Leonard: My Fifty-Year Friendship with a Remarkable Man, that Nimoy had cut off all communication with him in the last five years of his life. (Nimoy died in 2015 at the age of 83.)

“I thought he was joking at first and treated it as a joke because he sometimes would pretend and say, ‘No, I’m not going to do that’ and then say, ‘Yes,’ so that’s what I thought he did,” Shatner told The Hollywood Reporter in 2016. “But that time he really meant, no. … I just don’t know, and it is sad and it is permanent. I don’t know why he stopped talking to me.” 

While Shatner claims not to know the reason behind his falling out with Nimoy, there is one person who says he does: Adam Nimoy, Leonard’s son. 

“I know why,” Adam, 67, told Page Six in June 2024 without elaborating, saying he wants to “let sleeping dogs lie.” 

“It’s unfortunate, it’s sad,” Adam said, calling his father’s relationship with Shatner “very challenging.” However, he confessed that the two men “were really beautiful together” at one point.

“They had some reconciliation and it was beautiful, but it just didn’t, they just couldn’t sustain it. And that’s unfortunate,” Adam shared. 

“I have nothing of Leonard’s,” Shatner told THR in 2016. “I have no Star Trek memorabilia at all. I have a picture of him and me laughing in my office. I have the echo of the laughter that we had between us. But that’s all that I have.”